Samuel Goetz was accused of sexual assault in 2016. His accuser has broken her silence and criticized The Crow’s Nest for the paper’s coverage of the incident. Devin Rodriguez | The Crow’s Nest
By James Bennett III
The accuser in a 2016 sexual assault case on campus has called out The Crow’s Nest for the way it has covered the case.
In a letter to the newspaper, the female student accuses the paper of violating her privacy and repeatedly publicizing details of the case while positively portraying the male student, who was kicked out of school in May 2017. (See letter here.)
“You have continued to bring up traumatic details of the case with a seeming lack of regard for my healing and the feelings of the many sexual assault survivors on our campus,” her letter says.
“As a newspaper, I ask that you re-evaluate your ethical and moral boundaries rather than using my story as your hot take on #MeToo.”
The female student is not named in the records released by the university and a voluminous court file. She has not been named by the newspaper either.
But the male student in the case is Samuel Goetz, who in 2016-2017 was a member of the Student Government senate. He had just been elected vice president of SG when he was expelled by the university in May 2017.
A university conduct board concluded that Goetz was guilty of non-consensual sexual contact and non-consensual intercourse.
A month later, Goetz sued the university, contending that the charges were false and he was denied due process in contesting them.
He and his lawyers said he did not wish to be reinstated by the university, but did want the expulsion removed from his record so he could eventually attend law school.
In the months that followed, lawyers for Goetz and the university sparred over details of the alleged sexual assault in a series of hearings and documents.
In June 2018, three Pinellas County circuit court judges upheld the expulsion. But when Goetz appealed their ruling, the same judges later reversed themselves.
They ruled that Goetz’s rights of due process were denied by both the university’s student conduct board and Dean of Students Jacob Diaz and ordered a rehearing of the case.
Rather than prolonging the case, the university agreed to remove the expulsion from Goetz’s record, which instead would stipulate that he was suspended with “an ongoing restriction from access to the University.”
In her letter to The Crow’s Nest, the female student – who calls herself Jane Roe – says she now has “no reason to be silenced by our bullying source of news anymore.”
“This letter is to bring awareness to your staff to be aware of what impact your articles have on the emotional well-being of others,” she says. “I have cried many times over the things said about me and hoped that the news coverage would stop so that I may heal.”
Emily Wunderlich, the editor-in-chief of The Crow’s Nest, said the newspaper staff welcomed Roe’s letter, which she said brings a key voice to an important story.
The editors agree that any case of alleged sexual assault or harassment should be handled with great care, Wunderlich said.
The paper contacted Roe as the staff tried to determine why Goetz had suddenly resigned as vice president-elect of Student Government, Wunderlich said. In their brief conversation, the reporter promised that the paper would not publish Roe’s name.
The newspaper never published Roe’s name, Wunderlich said, and it did not publish some details of the sexual encounter.
When Goetz sued the university, Wunderlich said, it was important to follow the case in the context of renewed national debate on sexual violence on America’s college campuses.
Visit crowsneststpete.com to read previous coverage of the Samuel Goetz case.
